


Careless (or Careful?)

by nightbirdrises



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 23:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1567205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightbirdrises/pseuds/nightbirdrises
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Blaine moves to New York City, he finds that he shares the neighborhood with more than a few rough individuals. One of them, intriguing and indifferent, is named Kurt Hummel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Careless (or Careful?)

**Author's Note:**

> based on [this AU gifset](http://kurtsies.tumblr.com/post/82312224636).
> 
> warnings: verbal/physical harassment, slurs, bashing - please heed. ([tumblr](http://princehummel.tumblr.com/post/84757357471))

The first time Blaine sees Kurt Hummel is the day he moves into Santana and Rachel’s loft, and at that time he knows nothing about the man’s existence whatsoever. He only hears the roar of a motorcycle as he’s taking the last of his belongings into the building; he winces at the sound and instinctively turns to look. The motorcycle speeds down the street recklessly and Blaine barely catches a glimpse of its rider - leather-clad, with a scarf wrapped loose around his neck so that one end flaps behind him.

"I swear, one of these days I’m going to call the cops on that maniac," Rachel says; Blaine jumps, not having noticed her. He’d thought she was still in the loft. "He’s going to hurt someone."

"Who is that?" Blaine asks, curious. He knows that the neighborhood isn’t exactly friendly and, judging by Rachel’s tone, neither is the biker. Now that he’s here, he wants to find out everything he can.

"His name is Kurt," Rachel says haughtily, leading Blaine inside and into the elevator with his bags. "Last name Hummel. He’s nothing but a rude and careless delinquent. I believe he lives by himself at the end of the block."

"By himself? How can he afford that?"

"Oh, he works, and the building is an absolute dump anyway, so it’s as cheap as you can get in New York."

"Where does he work?" Rachel gives him an odd look and Blaine rolls his eyes. "I’m not  _interested_ , if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve never even seen his face.”

"I believe you. But I don’t know where he works, I can’t even imagine him being civil enough to keep a job of any kind for long." Rachel slides the door open for him and Blaine thanks her as he carries his stuff to his room. Or, well, what will be a room eventually. At the moment there are no curtains to separate his space - which is between the girls’ rooms - from the space that makes up the kitchen and living room. It’s a tight squeeze, but Blaine thinks they can make it work. "Anyway, he mostly keeps to himself."

"You talking about the Hummel guy?" Santana asks from the kitchen table, idly turning a page of her magazine as she scoffs. "Yeah, he keeps to himself as long as you don’t try to mess with him, as our dear friend Rachel found out."

"I was just trying to explain to him that he’s not some big shot just because he has that stupid bike and his stupid leather boots," Rachel huffs, crossing her arms. "He shouldn’t have lashed out the way he did."

"You should have heard it," Santana informs Blaine with an amused smile. "If he wasn’t such a loner, I’d give him a pat on the back for having a way with words after my own heart."

"Maybe you should be  _his_  roommate,” Rachel snaps. “Just because I’m more talented than the both of you combined—”

"Let’s not go down that road again, hm?"

"Uh," Blaine starts, worried about the glare of pure hatred that Rachel has aimed at Santana. "Rachel, will you help me set my bed up? All I need to do for today is make sure I have a place to sleep." She glances at him and seems to deflate a little.

"Fine, I will. I could use a distraction." She stalks into his room and Blaine sighs internally in relief. He starts to follow her, but Santana’s voice stops him.

"He’s gay, you know. Like,  _really_  gay.”

"Oh. Well, I—"

"Blaine is not interested in  _hooligans_ ,” Rachel says. “And he needs to get in here if he wants my supervision.”

"Supervision? I thought you were going to help me," Blaine says, entering the space. Santana laughs from the kitchen.

"Oh, Bowties, you’re gonna have to lose that naive streak if you want to make it here."

“I’m not naive,” Blaine protests, but then Rachel tuts and taps her foot and he gets to work, the infamous Kurt Hummel quickly leaving his mind.

 

* * *

 

The second time Blaine sees Kurt, he actually gets to see his face.

He’s hurrying down the sidewalk to get home - Rachel had called him in a panic because she felt a tickle in her throat and needed him to bring lemon tea, stat - and, as he turns the corner onto his block, he nearly crashes into someone.

“I’m sorry, sorry,” Blaine mutters, keeping his head down because he’s seen the kind of people around here and he’d rather not attempt to defend himself with high school boxing experience. “Excuse me.”

“You’re excused,” the person says in such an unexpectedly soft voice with a hard edge that Blaine can’t help but look up. He doesn’t recognize the face, but he recognizes the figure, and he stutters, staring because this guy is… well, beautiful. But intimidating, with pale skin and a defined jaw and styled hair that’s helmet-mussed and clear, piercing eyes.

“I-I, well, thank you, I guess, um, Kurt, is it?” The man inclines his head in what seems to be a terse nod so Blaine - like the idiot he is - gives him a thumbs-up. “Great! Well, it was nice meeting you, but I have to attend to my roommate before she murders me.”

“Rachel Berry, right?” Kurt asks, raising an eyebrow. Blaine takes a shallow breath and nods, eyes fixed on the silver earring that Kurt’s wearing. Does Kurt hate Rachel enough to hate him too? He sure hopes not. “I thought so.”

Kurt doesn’t continue or even ask for his name; he leans against the wall of the building next to them and looks down the street in the other direction, apparently bored with their conversation. Blaine takes just a second to look him over (he’s far from immune, especially to guys that look like Kurt), sees what are probably the tightest black pants in the world, a clean white V-neck under a black leather jacket, and a smirk on his lips that tells Blaine that his gaze isn’t as subtle as he thinks. Blaine flushes and averts his eyes, going on his way.

"Finally," Rachel says when he steps into the loft a few minutes later. "What took you so long?"

"Ran into Kurt," Blaine says as casually as he can, avoiding Rachel’s eyes.

"Yeah? What did he say?"

Blaine shrugs. “Nothing much.” Rachel rolls her eyes as she starts making her tea.

"Figures. Be grateful he doesn’t have his eye on you," she says, pointing her finger at him. "The last thing we need is Kurt Hummel knocking at our door and trying to use you as a booty call or something." Blaine shifts uncomfortably.

"I don’t know if it’s really fair to assume he’d do anything like that," he says carefully. "We don’t know him. Maybe he’d like a friend."

“‘Kurt’ and ‘friend’ don’t belong in the same sentence,” Rachel says. “Look, I know the rule: don’t judge a book by its cover. But Kurt doesn’t even  _try_  to be sociable, unless he goes to some ratty bar a few nights a week. I wouldn’t know.”

Blaine nods along halfheartedly; he’s sure that Rachel’s at least a little bit wrong, but he really has no proof, not when he has only had a single conversation with Kurt that barely qualifies as such. For the most part, Kurt had ignored him, and that doesn’t really help his case against Rachel - who he thinks might be a bit biased because of her experience with Kurt.

"Blaine, I know you think I’m being mean, but trust me on this," Rachel continues, hovering near the teapot. "He’s bad news and I don’t want you to somehow get mixed up with him just because he’s gay and attractive and close to home."

"Oh, so you think he’s attractive?" Blaine asks, ignoring the pang of hurt at the suggestion that he’d want to jump on the first and/or most convenient option available to him. Sure, Kurt looks nice and smells nice and sounds nice, but Blaine’s not going to chase after someone that has no real romantic interest in him.

"I’m not blind," Rachel says, glaring as Blaine grins at her. "He’s not my type, but I will admit that he’s not difficult to look at when he’s not covered from head to toe in leather and chains."

"You dated Puck," Blaine reminds her.

"Okay, that’s  _not_  the same thing,” Rachel huffs. “Puck and Kurt are completely different species of boy.”

"Whatever you say."

Rachel hands him a mug of tea after pouring her own and smiles. “I’m just looking out for you, Blaine. Living in New York is  _amazing_ , but it’s also dangerous.”

"Yeah, I know. Thank you, really," Blaine says. "I just kind of wish we knew more about him."

"We all do," Rachel says with a shrug. "But some questions are better left unanswered. He obviously doesn’t want to have closeness or be associated with anyone."

"I guess so." Blaine watches the steam curl out of his mug and sighs. "That seems so lonely, though. How can anyone deal with that?"

Rachel gives him a disapproving look, though there’s genuine concern there as well. “You’ll go crazy if you keep trying to understand Kurt. I know how much you care about everyone you meet, but this is one person that is impossible to care about in any real sense, and you’re going to have to accept it at some point.”

Blaine isn’t so sure - after all, he cares about Kurt right now, even if it’s only because he’s such a mystery - but he has to admit to some truth in what Rachel’s saying. How can anyone care about someone who (supposedly) cares for no one? So he drops the subject and dedicates himself to caring just a little bit less.

He can already tell it’s going to be a challenge.

 

* * *

 

He sees Kurt semi-regularly over the following weeks, but they don’t have any more near collisions or brief conversations. Blaine actually starts to think that Kurt doesn’t even notice him, and that thought probably worries him more than it should.

What  _should_  worry him is the look that one particular guy in their neighborhood gives him every time he passes. It’s something like disgust, and Blaine tries to avoid him after a while but he only finds that the guy starts skulking near their building when he’s just getting home. He asks Santana and Rachel about it, but they get home either before or after he does, so they don’t ever see the stranger. Rachel suggests that he call the police, but Blaine doesn’t think he needs to go that far when nothing has happened. Santana offers him her razor blades, but he politely declines.

A few days after his decision to just ignore the guy, he’s unpleasantly shocked when he hears jeering across the street as soon as he turns the corner onto his block.

"Hey, where’ve you been?" the guy - a man in his mid-twenties, to be exact - says tauntingly. "Bet you’ve been taking it up the ass like a little bitch, huh?"

Blaine’s heart races, and heat floods to his face, but he keeps his head down and makes a beeline for his building. It’s still a ways off, though, so he has to listen to the words being half-shouted at him. He almost wishes the man were drunk so there’d be some reason for his behavior, something concrete to blame, but no - he’s steady as a rock, and just as stubbornly cruel.

"I don’t like having fags like you so close to home, buddy," he continues. Blaine veers away from him as he steps into the street - it’s not busy, it hardly ever is, so Blaine isn’t about to hope that a car will come and give him a cover. "I’d tell you to suck my dick, but you’d probably fucking love that, right?"

"Leave me alone," Blaine says firmly; his voice cracks on the last word. He’s reminded of the reason he transferred to McKinley, which was because of people like this guy here. The words are worse this time, though.

"No, I don’t think I will. What, are you scared? You better be. I want your faggot ass out of here before you start attracting more of them, like fucking flies. Come on twink, look at me like a goddamn man."

He has no way to defend himself - Blaine kicks himself internally for not being prepared, he should have at least  _planned_  for something like this. But this is New York City, a supposed safe haven for people like him. Santana’s right: he’s naive.

The front door to his building is just yards away, but Blaine’s harasser is getting closer, nearly breaking into a jog. Blaine drops his pretenses and runs, but the man grabs his arm and wrenches it behind him, where it’s crushed painfully against a wall when he’s pushed into it. Blaine grunts at the impact and tries to shout for help, but all that comes out is a hoarse sound barely capable of reaching the other side of the street.

"Can’t even talk right ‘cause you get dicks shoved down your throat, bet you beg for it too, fucking- bastard," the guy mutters as he shoves Blaine into the wall again, harder, his breath hot on Blaine’s face. "Maybe if I fuck up your face you’ll learn something, huh? Can’t suck dick with a broken jaw no matter how much you fucking beg anyone for it."

Blaine squeezes his eyes shut and steels himself, refusing to say anything because, really, what could he say that would get him out of this situation? He certainly can’t move - he thinks his hand might be severely bruised, and his shoulder is twisted painfully. Better to take it now and hope someone will notice what’s going on and help him.

Given the relative quiet of the rest of the neighborhood, though, he isn’t expecting much.

"Get  _off_  of him!”

The new voice sounds vaguely familiar, but Blaine can’t place it. He doesn’t open his eyes - it’s probably his head making up things out of desperation, anyway. But then the body in front of him is being pulled away and he blinks them open against his better judgment. He sees his attacker with his arms behind his back, struggling against whoever’s holding him; Blaine can’t clearly see who it is because they’re on the other side of the guy, who’s big enough to block his view.

"What the hell?" is all the guy manages to bite out before he’s being pushed away; he stumbles and falls to the concrete with a pained groan. He’s up again in seconds, but he just glares at Blaine and lets a breath puff out. "I’m still watching you, faggot."

"In that case, I’m watching  _you_ ,” the new voice says. Blaine finally looks at the person and  _almost_  gasps out loud - it’s Kurt. “This is the twenty-first century, you know. Just because you’re a grade-A asshole doesn’t mean you’re gonna keep people from fucking and loving whoever the fuck they want.”

"Yeah, yeah. I’m not afraid of a couple of boyfriends." The guy flinches when Kurt steps sharply towards him, a hand reaching for one of his pockets.

"On the contrary…" Kurt smiles grimly as his opponent turns around and starts off in the other direction. "See you later, Brett."

"What, you know him?" Blaine asks, disbelieving.

"Unfortunately. You okay?"

"I- I think so," Blaine says, examining his hand and arm. As expected, it’s sore and will definitely bruise within the hour, but he doesn’t seem to be seriously injured. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s shaken right to his core. "Kind of."

"Is there someone waiting for you up there?" Kurt asks, tipping his head at Blaine’s building. "Broadway Berry or that… Santana, is it?"

"No, they won’t be back until later."

"Then we’ll wait for one of them."

"Oh, you don’t have to—" Blaine stops at the look Kurt gives him, stern and… oddly tender. The latter part’s due to his eyes, which aren’t so unyielding in their gaze as usual. It’s like some of Kurt’s edges have rounded off somehow - but not all of them. "Okay."

Blaine attempts to make light conversation several times as they wait, with no luck in getting Kurt to speak with him; soon he gives up and texts Rachel, telling her to hurry home. He doesn’t give her a reason for it, but he hopes that her curiosity will be enough.

He’s actually dozing off as he leans against the building - he’d never have expected to feel  _safe_  so soon after something like that, but Kurt seems to give off a strong sense of security - when a shrill voice brings him back to reality.

"Blaine, what the hell happened?"

"Huh?"

Rachel crosses her arms and points at Blaine’s hand. It definitely looks worse than it feels - Blaine’s eyes widen as he stares, looking over the mottled bruises that stretch into his wrist as well. They aren’t particularly dark, but it’s noticeable nonetheless.

"Where’s Kurt?" Blaine asks, looking back up at Rachel, who tilts her head.

"Why do you need to know?" She gasps loudly, eyes going wide. "Wait a minute, did  _he_  do this?”

"What? No!" Blaine glances around - but Kurt has disappeared. "He sort of saved me, actually."

"Saved you? From what?"

Blaine sighs and gestures to the door. If he has to tell the story, he’d rather do it while making his way back to his home.

 

* * *

 

"…Kurt stood up for me," Blaine finishes, fervent as he tries to get Rachel to understand.

Just then, the loft door slides open. Blaine restrains himself from jumping at the sound, an irrational part of him thinking that it’s Brett come back to find him, but it’s only Santana.

"Blaine, how many times? Kurt is—"

"Oh, I came at the right time," Santana says cheerfully, interrupting Rachel. "Is leather devil Hummel trying to get into your tiny pants or something, Anderson?"

"You’re both delusional," Rachel states darkly. "Kurt only cares about himself and that ridiculously loud motorcycle."

"I thought so too, but—"

"But nothing. Blaine, you must have been seeing things, which is understandable given the trauma you just went through. Kurt just… wouldn’t do something like that."

"And how do you know that?" Santana asks, saving Blaine the trouble of coming up with a response. "Are you besties with the dark unicorn?"

"Of course not. But you can’t possibly think he’s a decent person, not after—"

"After giving you exactly what you deserved, right? I’m sorry he bruised your ego - well, actually, I’m not - but that doesn’t give you any right to judge."

"You judge people all the time."

"I judge the people that I  _know_  all the time. There’s a difference.”

Blaine tunes out the rest of their banter when he hears his phone ring. He grabs it off the table and picks up the call, quickly moving to the living room in an attempt to hear better over the girls’ voices.

"Hello?"

"Am I speaking with Mr. Blaine Anderson?" 

Blaine blinks at the strange, serious voice. “Yes.”

"An ER patient here at the Brooklyn Medical Center has requested to see you," the woman says. "Do you know a Mr. Kurt Hummel?"

"Oh, my- Yes, yeah." Rachel and Santana stop talking and stare at him, but Blaine doesn’t pay attention to them.

"Please do your best to come by as soon as possible," she continues. "Bring legal identification. His condition is stable but he has suffered some injuries, and he’s very insistent about wanting you here."

"Okay. Yeah, I’m heading out right now. Brooklyn Medical Center?"

"That’s the one. We will see you soon, Mr. Anderson." Blaine stuffs his phone into his pocket after hanging up and rushes to grab his coat.

"Whoa there, what’s going on?" Santana asks, uncharacteristically concerned. "You can’t just leave, didn’t Rachel just tell me you were bashed or something?"

"I have to," Blaine says shortly. "Kurt’s in the hospital."

"And you’re going because…"

"Because he wants me there."

"I’m coming with you," Santana says, throwing her jacket back over her shoulders. Rachel sets her jaw and stands up straight.

"Me too."

"Oh, no you aren’t," Santana says. Blaine’s at the door, foot tapping impatiently, anxiously. "You don’t want to be too close to a dangerous criminal like him, anyway."

"I never said he was a criminal," Rachel says, but she backs down. "Be safe, you two."

 

* * *

 

The cab ride is too long for Blaine’s taste. Santana, thankfully, isn’t speaking - but the silence means that he has too much room to think. He can’t stop wondering why Kurt would be in the hospital all of a sudden, and the ER, no less. He also can’t stop wondering why Kurt wants to see  _him_  at this particular time. Blaine’s worried that he’ll find Kurt broken, something he can’t even imagine because Kurt is such a constant, unshakable part of the neighborhood. For instance, as annoying as the motorcycle is, it’s just one of those things about home that Blaine can no longer imagine going without.

They reach the hospital and Santana is told to stay in the waiting room as she’s not family, nor was she requested by the patient. Blaine, however, is led back, his eyes staring straight ahead of him at the back of the nurse’s head. Suddenly they’re turning a corner into one of the rooms and… there’s Kurt.

He looks different without his usual clothes, his hair mussed. He looks somehow innocent, even with the scrapes and bruises that stand out sharply on his face against the paleness of his skin. His left eye has the worst of the bruises, darkly purple - and a cut high up on his forehead seems to disappear into his hairline.

"I know I’m a mess, but you don’t have to stare like that," Kurt mumbles; Blaine startles, having thought that Kurt was asleep by the way his eyes are closed. But they open now - the left one less so than the right. "Hey."

"Hi," Blaine says, because it’s all he can think of to say. "What, how…"

"Brett has friends," Kurt says; his lips barely move with his words, so Blaine steps closer to the bedside to keep Kurt from trying too hard to get him to hear. "I thought I would try to make him change his mind about still going after you."

"Didn’t you have, I don’t know, some way to defend yourself?" Blaine stumbles; he had been about to say that he thought Kurt had a knife or something due to Kurt’s move for his pocket earlier, but somehow he already knows the answer to that.

"I don’t carry weapons," Kurt says. "Sometimes I have pepper spray, but he was just one guy. Then there were three. Fucking cowards ran away after I hit the ground."

"But…" Blaine trails off, speechless. At a loss of what to do, he sits on the edge of the bed. "They could have killed you."

"They’re too scared to do something like that."

"Still, you risked that for someone who… I didn’t even know you noticed me."

Kurt gives him what is unmistakably a smile, stiffened by his injuries but there all the same. It occurs to Blaine that he doesn’t look broken at all - he looks incredibly different, hurt on the surface, but he appears stronger than ever. He looks gentle, too, when he says, “It’s hard not to notice you.”

Blaine isn’t sure where the urge comes from, but he grasps Kurt’s hand carefully where it rests on top of the sheets, knuckles cracked and bruised. “Is anyone else coming to see you?”

Kurt shakes his head minutely. “Dad’s in Ohio, and he doesn’t know. Won’t tell him ‘til I’m out, either.”

"You don’t want him here?"

"Don’t want him worrying about me. Weak heart, he had his second heart attack just a few months ago. And he gets, ah, protective."

"But you’re not…"

"No daddy issues, if that’s what you’re thinking," Kurt says with a wry grin. Or as much of one as he can manage, at least. "I love him more than anything."

"Oh. Well, that’s good," Blaine says. He stares at their hands. "So, what’s going to happen when you’re out of here?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like… me," Blaine says lamely. "I don’t want you to act like you don’t notice me anymore."

"You sure? That roommate of yours doesn’t like me, I wouldn’t want to fuck up your friendship."

"Rachel just doesn’t know you very well. She’s usually a sweet girl, she just… doesn’t take well to being insulted." Blaine shifts to get more comfortable. "I don’t think  _anyone_  knows you very well. I know I don’t.”

"I really couldn’t care less about that," Kurt says, blinking slowly. "Although, there is one exception."

"Yeah?"

"I want  _you_  to know me, I think. As long as I get to know you, too.”

"Oh—" Blaine smiles for the first time, ducking his head. "That’s a deal."

"You’re not scared of me and my big, bad motorcycle?"

"Of course not, Kurt." Blaine furrows his brows. "Actually, the motorcycle does scare me a little bit. But not the guy that rides it. I happen to think he’s kind of a hero."

"Mm, that’s a first," Kurt says, voice low. His eyes are slipping shut despite obvious efforts to stay awake. "Fucking pain meds."

"You should rest," Blaine says.

"Don’t want you to be gone when I wake up. Like everyone else," Kurt mumbles; Blaine wonders if he’s already half-asleep. "Stay."

"Yeah, I’ll stay." Kurt’s light grip on his hand slackens just enough for Blaine to decide that he has fallen asleep. He looks peaceful, that quiet strength still evident even in the loose set of his jaw in sleep. Blaine takes a breath and adds, "Forever, if you’ll let me."

He doesn’t expect Kurt to hear it - but he does. He also doesn’t expect Kurt to take him up on that too-soon offer - but he does, years later, when there’s a new apartment and a question and a ring.

(When Blaine asks where the ring came from, Kurt asks him when was the last time he saw the motorcycle. And Blaine frowns; “You love that thing.” Kurt smiles; “I love  _you_  more.”)


End file.
